1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a system for managing process equipments and a method using the same, and more particularly, to a system for managing liquid supply and a method using the same.
2. Description of Related Art
In a semiconductor process, various liquids are often used for carrying out the process. Taking a lithography process as an example, in the photoresist coating process, the chip surface is spin-coated with a liquid photoresist where the selected photoresist type depends on different process conditions.
When the photoresist in a process machine is used out, a registering and mapping procedure is usually conducted manually, and then, a worker decides to replace the used out photoresist with a fresh photoresist. In more detail, once a photoresist in a machine is used out, a signal would be sent out from the machine to remind the worker to supplement the fresh photoresist, so as to avoid interruption of a production line. In response thereto, the worker would go to remove a fresh photoresist tank of the same type to replace the exhausted photoresist tank. Further, the worker would manually delete the data related to the exhausted photoresist tank in a computer terminal, enter the data related to the fresh photoresist tank and conduct mapping and verification. Finally, the worker would find the exhausted photoresist tank in the photoresist-placing cabinet of the machine and replace the exhausted photoresist tank with a fresh photoresist tank and then restart the machine.
During the above-mentioned process, the data related to the fresh photoresist tank would be mapped against the established database in the computer so as to judge whether the removed fresh photoresist tank is the correct one, which of course is without a mandatory mechanism of control and administration. Since the photoresists are of a variety of types, and some of the photoresists have similar and very close nomenclatures, so that it is very likely to cause a wrong withdrawal due to human negligence. Once a worker does not perform the mapping procedure or ignores the mapping error message to replace a photoresist tank with a correct one, then, a fatal mistake of replacement would occur, which further affects the yield and cost of the entire product.